There are numerous occasions in which Jesus says that God will give to us the things that we bring before him in prayer. For example, in Luke 11:9-10 he says, “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” These words seem to imply that when we ask, seek, and knock, God will open the door for us to receive and find what we have asked. A similar point seems to be made in John 14:13-14 with the addition that such requests should be made in the name of Jesus: “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
Yet the experience of Christians is that we do not seem to receive everything that we ask for from God. We have prayed for people to have been healed and they have not. We have prayed for a situation to go a certain way and it did not – in fact, it may seem to have gotten worse before it gets any better. We often call these situations “unanswered prayers,” but I think the better way is to call them prayers in which we did not receive the answer we desired; instead of a “yes,” we received a “no,” or a “not yet,” or a “how about this instead.”
How are we to process these prayers that are not answered the way we desire? Our first thought might be that we did not pray the right way and because we did not say the right words, God did not heed our requests. In light of Jesus’s statement that the Gentiles think they are heard because of their many words (see Matthew 6:7), I do not think that is the reason. Prayer is not a formula that we need to master and it is not that we simply need to say the “magic words” to make it happen.
If that is not the reason that we did not get the answer we sought, what might be some possible reasons? A few reasons from Scripture came to mind as I reflected upon that question for a few days – there may be more but these are the ones that came to mind that I wanted to pass along in case they are helpful.
Asking With the Wrong Motives
Perhaps the most direct passage on this question is James 4:3, “You ask and don’t receive because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” What the Lord’s brother is pointing out here is that at times we ask for things not because they will bring glory to God and further honor Jesus’s name but rather because they stem from selfish desires. The Lord’s Prayer begins with talking about God’s name being honored, His kingdom coming, and His will being done on earth as it is in heaven; our prayers should reflect that aim rather than to have our names be honored, our kingdom be built, and our wills be done. We are told to ask for our daily bread, trusting God to provide for our needs rather than to fulfil our desires – we don’t ask for steak for the next month but rather for today’s bread…..today! When our prayers come from these wrong motives, we may not see God give us what we want. In contrast, when we find ourselves delighting in the Lord, we will see that God gives us the things that we desire (see Psalm 37:4).
Asking With the Wrong Mentality
A somewhat related reason for prayers not being answered in the way that we like might be that our mentality in prayer is wrong. Jesus tells us to pray boldly to the Father and ask for things in the name of Jesus. Instead of praying in the name of Jesus, sometimes we pray in our own names, thinking that God should grant our request because we have been a good boy or good girl. Such an approach makes God out to be Santa Claus rather than the creator of the universe and ruler of all things – including us. We might think that God will answer our prayer our way because “He owes us,” almost thinking about Him like a friend who owes us a favor. We can be guilty of these mentalities even when we are using the words “in the name of Jesus,” perhaps even thinking of these words as akin to having to say the magic words of “please.” Such a mentality is really praying in our own names rather than in the name of Jesus, thinking that God will hear us because we have done the right thing or because of our own character rather than seeing ourselves as only having the ability to come to God at all, let alone with great boldness, because of Jesus our Great High Priest who died for us and now intercedes for us.
Asking With the Wrong Lifestyle
A Bible verse that I have to confess I didn’t think much about before I got married but one that I think about a lot now – and try to share with other men who are married or about to get married – is 1 Peter 2:7: “Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” I realize there might be some words in these verses that are worth a bit more explanation lest they be misunderstood, but I want to focus upon that last phrase that I italicized: when a husband is not treating his wife with proper dignity and respect, then his prayer life is hindered. While this verse has a narrow focus in terms of how husbands treat their wives, I think it may also point to a deeper principle at work in our prayer lives; if we are not living in a way that accords with what God has commanded us to do, we should not expect Him to respond positively to our requests. This is not saying that God expects us to be perfect and will only respond to our prayers when we are doing everything right. If that was the case, we would never see answered prayers! Rather, I think it is pointing to habitual and willful disobedience to God’s Word; when the direction we are living is one of mistreating others (especially those who are closest to us) and ignoring His commands, God may not grant what we ask because it would lead us further into sin. Instead, He guides us toward what He knows is best for us.
Asking With the Wrong Perspective
There are a few other reasons that I will lump together in this category of “asking with the wrong perspective.” Sometimes we may be asking God to do something to get out of doing it ourselves. We need to recognize that a way that God answers our prayers at times might be through us doing it. The biblical text that taught me this truth is Matthew 9:35-10:5, Jesus tells his disciples to pray for the Lord to send workers out into the world because of the need to know Him and then sends out these same disciples he told to pray. The answer God provided to this prayer came through the actions of the ones praying it. When God hasn’t provided the answer you want, maybe it is because you have not taken the step forward to do what God has called you to do to make that happen.
We can also have the opposite perspective when it comes to prayer, though, which is that we are actually praying for God to simply do what we have already started to do; we have made a plan and then asked God to bless the plan. Such a prayer is not a bold prayer of deep dependence on Him – thinking that you can do nothing without Him – but rather a prayer that treats you as a friend you are trying to mobilize to help you accomplish your goals. Those goals might be good – stemming from a desire to see God glorified – but you have the wrong perspective on how to approach God in prayer.
A third way that our perspective might be wrong when it comes to prayer is that we may think that the answer needs to be immediate when we see Jesus talking about prayer being something that we should persist in; we should keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking (see Jesus’s parable in Luke 18:1-8).
Asking for the Wrong Thing
The final reason that I want to highlight is that the issue might be that you are asking for the wrong thing even though you don’t realize it. Jesus tells us to call God “father” in our prayers, but sometimes I wonder if that has become so routine we forget what that means. First of all, it means that the Creator of the universe has great love and care for you, even in spite of your sin and rebellion. He gives you the privilege of a relationship with Him. Wow! While our earthly fathers may not always know or do what is best, we can know that our Heavenly Father knows what is best – and has the power to do it. The late Tim Keller said that when we see God answering a prayer a way differently than what we hope, we should recognize that God is providing what we would have been asking if we knew all that we knew. Jesus talks about the fact that earthly fathers will not provide harmful things like snakes or scorpions when their kids ask for fish or eggs (Luke 11:13), so we can be confident our heavenly father won’t give us things that harm us when we are in need.
However, at the same time we need to recognize that sometimes kids don’t like what their parents give them…but if the parents gave them what they asked for, it would be harmful. We may think we are asking for a fish but really it’s a snake, and our Father thankfully gives us what we actually need, not what we thought we needed. At times, we may feel like He has given us the snake, but when we feel that way I think we need to go back not just to the words that Jesus taught the disciples about prayer but also his own experience in prayer, particularly in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asked God essentially to take away going to the cross (Matthew 25:36-36; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46). Jesus’s desire is not granted because this was the only way, the better way – for which we are all thankful. While Jesus’s suffering is different from ours, we need to recognize that the pathway to know God and make Him known may not always involve comfort and ease but will lead not just to God’s glory but our ultimate good.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask
I hope these explanations help us to make sense of a reality we all face in prayer – that our requests aren’t always answered the way we want, in light of the various Scripture passages that might otherwise lead us to believe God will give us whatever we ask.
You may ask why Jesus doesn’t give all these disclaimers on those statements that talk about receiving what we ask for. That’s a fair question to ask, but when we ask it we need to keep in mind what I just shared about how God may be giving us what we actually need rather than what we want. We may want all the disclaimers, but Jesus did not deem that to be best to do and I am going to trust that there is a good reason for that. I can’t say I know for sure the reason, but a hunch of mine that I think could partially be the reason is that these sayings are meant to motivate us to pray with confidence and hope and to remind us of our need to do so, resisting the urge not to ask at all. While there are reasons that God may not answer a prayer request the way you want, above all we need to remember that God will not answer a prayer request that is not made, so let us make them with the right motives, mentality, lifestyle, and perspective, knowing that He will give us the right thing even if when we ask for the wrong ones for His glory and our good.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Bible translations are from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers.
